Thanks to SimTD technology, car-to-car communication may soon become a reality.

(Ford)

Friday, October 21, 2011, 1:32 PM

Ford has unveiled new technologies developed as part of its work to allow car-to-car vehicle communication.

The work, which is likely to significantly change the way that we drive in the future, is part of a large-scale test of simTD, a new communications infrastructure underway in Germany involving Audi, BMW, Daimler, Ford, Opel and Volkswagen.

Last week, Ford revealed some of the innovations that have been borne of the project, including a sophisticated new 'electronic brake light', which sends braking information from a vehicle to those following it.

Vehicles equipped with the technology to receive such data would then be able to warn the driver of a sudden stop ahead for instance, considerably reducing the risk of an accident in bad weather.

It is an evolution of current stop-warning systems, which rely on radar technology to detect obstacles ahead.

A further use could be in communicating the position of such obstacles, Ford suggested, collaborating on a new system which can inform other cars of the presence, position and type of potentially dangerous items on the road.

Vehicles using the system would be able to make one another 'aware' of a foreign object on the road when a driver takes evasive action, allowing other drivers to have more time to react.

The innovations were unveiled at the start of the simTD operational test last week, which was the culmination of three years of research by the partners and German government agencies.